Newspaperman turned private investigator Tim Slade and Hugh Fresney, the hardboiled managing editor of The Los Angeles Daily Dispatch , are trapped in the wreckage of Fresney's automobile, which has veered off a cliff along the coastal highway and crashed onto the beach below. Fresney, who is seriously injured and knows that he will not survive, recalls in his final breath the events that led up to the tragic crash: At the Daily Dispatch office, Nick Dyke, who runs the local gambling syndicate, meets with Clinton Vaughn, the milquetoast chief editor, to make a bid on the newspaper. Fresney is aware of Dyke's plan to take over control of the both the newspaper and the entire city and vows to do whatever it takes to break him. When a speeding car fires shots at Vaughn's car, Vaughn insists that Fresney end his investigation of Dyke, but Fresney ignores Vaughn's orders and hires Slade to continue. Fearing that he is in danger, Fresney meets with Slade to discuss his life insurance policy. Fresney tells Slade that because he likes to "smash" people who get in his way, he believes that there are probably a number of people who would like to see him dead. Later, at a party at the Vaughns's, Vaughn's wife Julie professes her love for Slade, the man Vaughn fired for telling him that Julie married him for his money. She also tells Slade that she thinks that they both would be better off if her husband were "out of the way." Slade, however, does not love Julie, and is busy pursuing Vaughn's secretary, Dana Jones. The following day, Fresney and Vaughn are found in the stairwell of the Daily Dispatch , both suffering from gunshot wounds. Although Vaughn is fatally shot, Fresney survives. Later, Julie tells Slade that she is worried about a note that she sent to him, a note in which she expressed her true feelings about her husband and her love for Slade, and fears that she may be suspected of the shooting. Slade, however, tells her that she should be more concerned that she will be the next victim because she has inherited ownership of the newspaper. He then convinces her to sign over ownership of the newspaper to him, temporarily, and to publicize the fact in order to protect herself and set a trap for the killer as well. During Slade's investigation of the shooting, Dana confesses that she was coerced into "stooling" for Dyke. She also tells Slade that Dyke is interested in a secret file located in Vaughn's office. Slade then goes to meet a man named Pop Garrow, who had called him earlier to arrange a secret rendevous at Union Station to give him the file. On his way to the station, however, Slade is knocked unconscious by thugs and Pop is murdered. Slade finds a locker key on Pop's body and later returns to the station to retrieve its contents--a briefcase. As soon as Slade drives off with the briefcase, he finds himself being chased. After giving his pursuers the slip, Slade goes to Fresney's Malibu beachhouse, where he arrives in time to witness Dyke pulling a gun on Fresney and Fresney shooting him. Fresney then confesses to Slade that the briefcase contains evidence that would have sent Dyke to the gas chamber. Later, as Slade and Fresney are are driving down the coast, Slade, realizing that Fresney is about to kill him, tells Fresney that he is aware of the fact that he faked his own gunshot wound in the stairwell in order to divert suspicion from him. Slade also tells Fresney that the briefcase he brought with him does not contain the papers Fresney wants, and Fresney, enraged, drives his car over the cliff. Pinned in the wreckage as the tide is coming in, Fresney is about to shoot Slade but has a change of heart and allows him to escape. Fresney, whose last request is that his story be put on the front page, dies saying "that'll be my high tide."